If you can find a spruce board
it will make a very strong paddle and can be as light as western red cedar. I get my spruce from a local saw mill and the guy wants to just give the boards. Ask around your area, you might be surprised.
don’t build your first GP paddle
out of birch plywood
second the lumpy …
Paddled a few GP’s so far. Carbon fiber, wood etc. Lumpy is where its at. Smooth as butter, forgiving and just a delight in any hands. And Bill is amazing to work with.
-assad
Cool beans!
gstamer,
Nice list,thanks! …Danny
I’d suggest opposite
Go with shoulder on first GP - so you can learn decent hand placement on blade roots, and just paddle. Shoulders really don’t interfere with using different hand positions for extended strokes anyway. One of my Storm’s is unshouldered and I like it a lot - but my shouldered one is jut as easy to do sliding stroke with. All of my shouldered paddles have very soft shoulders (Beale’s are fairly soft, Superior’s quite soft, mine are even softer). I see no reason for the abrupt transitions and harder corners I’ve seen on some paddles - maybe just warm water bias and is OK with heavy gloves?